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CHARACTER NAME: Metody Green
CANON: OC
MEDIA: n/a
BIRTHDAY/AGE: May 1, 1982; he is 30 years old
CANON POINT: n/a
WHY THIS CHARACTER AND CANON POINT?: n/a as far as canon point goes. As for why this character: Metody is cheerful and a heck of a lot of fun to play. I think he adds a lot to the games he's in, as he is a useful blend of happy, sensible and compassionate. He's a good foil for both darker characters and lighter, more silly characters.
PROGRAMMED POSSESSION: His survival pack, which he is required by law to carry at all times while in Steel City. This contains environmental gear, including a respirator, supplemental oxygen, two liters of water, a water filter for when the contents of one bottle must be cleaned and poured into the other, rations, two days worth of medication and an emergency signal. Metody has supplemented it with hard candy and a hand held game console.
HISTORY: Once there was a god. The nature and the details of the god don't matter, because he – or possibly she, or it – was killed completely, and erased from the fabric of reality. But even a small god is a very large thing, and a few scraps were bound to be left over.
Metody is one of these scraps. Specifically, he is a splinter of bone that went tumbling through the world for long generations until it lodged inside someone who was at exactly the right point of almost dead. Metody does not have the power of a god, or even a very good priest. He can command bone and the associated tissues, and even that can be blocked by someone who is sufficiently knowledgeable or lucky. Additionally, he has absolutely no idea of what he is, and no way to find out.
Metody's world is like ours in only the loosest of details. It is heavily infested with spirits and gods, and so riddled with magic that entire continents vanish and reappear on a regular basis. Humanity has learned to survive through constant, intricate ritual and a tight-rope walk between using the magic around them, and frantically driving it back. One of the many creatures that plague them are witch-kin – things that start out as humans without souls, and slowly become magical, powerful and mad from the terrible knowledge of what they are. Metody believes himself to be a witch-kin in the first stages of development, and is terrified of what the future will hold.
Metody's sprawling family is one of the seven major adopting families in the United States, and he is used to having a relative wherever he goes. Like most adoptions in his world, his was carefully arranged to make it impossible for him to find his birth family, or vice versa; the sacrifice of love from the birth family, and the formation of a bloodless parental bond forms a powerful, life-long protection that is broken if knowing contact is made. Often, children with fatal conditions are given up in the hopes that this protection will save them. This is almost certainly what happened with Metody, who arrived in his new family with a serious heart defect.
Metody is the last of eight children, and has always been considered the baby of the family. He suffered a major car accident in his teens that destroyed his mind and broke his body. His physical recovery has been nothing short of miraculous – the adoption protection on him is very strong, and augmented by the subtle, instinctual application of his powers. He spent significant time in rehab for his mental disabilities, which is where he met John Smith, an artist who was recovering from the loss of his lower legs in the waning war with the Muisican Confederacy. Despite the vocal disapproval of both their families, the two quickly became a couple. They went on to college in Steel City, the cursed center of industry for the Eastern US, exchanging free educations for seven years of labor in the factories. The relationship was difficult from the beginning, but John's increasingly controlling ways and the demands of his growing powers made it hellish for Metody. A year and a half into their labor contracts, they broke up.
That was two years ago. The cursed city in which he lives has taken an expected toll on his health and mind. Metody's powers have flourished, and he has gone from regarding them with utter terror to a calm resignation. The easiest part of him to come to terms with has been his ever changing gender – that, at least, has precedence in his culture.
PSYCHOLOGY/PERSONALITY: For the most part, Metody is upbeat and cheerful. He places a high value on being both useful and pleasant to be around, and is highly eager to please. Sometimes this leads him into trouble; when in a group, he takes the jobs that no one else wants. If you need someone to wake up at 3 am to pick your mother up from the airport, Metody's your guy.
Person-hood is considered to be a process in Metody's world; anything with a soul is capable of being a person, but it requires good deeds and self-sacrifice to actually happen. Metody believes he does not have a soul, and so is incapable of becoming a person. Despite this, he desperately wants to be, and so he does what good he can in an effort to leave some kind of positive footprint on the world. This is not something he is willing to discuss.
Metody has a nasty sense of inferiority, and truly believes that others are more important than himself. He believes himself to be constantly scrambling behind his academic peers, despite tutoring some of them. Although he picks up extra money selling carvings and working on the intricate decorations that cover every inch of his world, he believes he is incapable of true artistry or creative endeavor. Despite this, he is happy about his talents; he might not ever be an artist, but he is grateful that he can combine old forms in new and pleasant ways.
Metody's gender is fluid. Metody is completely comfortable with this, but a bit shy about it as some people consider it freakish. Most of the time, he presents as a male who cross-dresses. To make conversation easier, he prefers that when people talk about him, they pick one pronoun and stick to it. He generally changes his gender to suit a social situation. Occasionally, this has led to awkwardness, such as when he's with a friend who considers him male, and they meet up with another who considers him female. In these situations, Metody copes by quietly ignoring any problems that crop up.
Metody has a highly liberal attitude towards sex and relationships. This is cultural; it is fairly normal (if low class) to have multiple partners in a somewhat stable framework, especially among young people. Metody's parents have recently celebrated their thirty-fifth anniversary with one of their girlfriends. Reliable birth control has been available to women since the thirties, and to both genders since the sixties.
POWERS/ABILITIES: Metody's powers center around bone – shaping, healing and manipulating them. This includes associated tissues, such as tendon, ligament and cartilage, as well as dead bone. He is able to divide his consciousness between multiple bodies, enabling him to animate his bone creatures. Unless his main mind is occupying one, these are roughly as intelligent as a dog. When his fleshy body is unoccupied, it is unconscious.
As he matures, he is becoming less and less human. His gender switching is one of the early aspects of this. While it is not completely unheard of for people in Metody's world to feel they are both male and female, Metody is unique in that this extends to a biological switching as well. He has always felt that his gender is fluid, but the physical aspect has only developed in the past two years. A good deal of his comfort with it is from no one else knowing.
If Metody's story hadn't been interrupted by Taxon, more changes would have taken place. In time, he would have encountered and merged with his siblings (respectively a drop of blood and a shred of flesh), and the new creature would have retreated to the wilderness to become a spirit of his world.
Obviously, Metody is unaware of all this. He believes his gender switching is another aspect of his monstrosity.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Metody is short, slender and exceedingly pale. His face is androgynous to feminine. It is no accident that he is so pretty; when his face was put back together, his plastic surgeon aimed for ideal proportions, and came very close to them. He chooses his clothing according to how colorful it is and how much of his skin it covers; he is prone to sunburn. He is covered in tattoos of green leaves, not that they show.
Metody's body is constantly leeching the poisons from Steel City. These give him an unpleasantly chemical smell, and force him to keep himself meticulously clean, so as to avoid massive skin problems. If he is unable to wash, his skin will quickly crack and seep. (His body fluids will make others ill if they consume them, but I really can't see that becoming a plot point, unless he's attacked by vampires with head colds. His sweat is mildly irritating, but no more so than, say, hand soap left to dry on the skin.) Another effect of this poisoning is that he requires quite a bit of sleep - nine hours a day at least, twelve hours ideally. Any less than this, and he quickly becomes sick.
Metody has nearly no sense of taste or smell. He is capable of enjoying different textures in foods, but for the most part, eating is a chore. Ironically, he's very fond of cooking, though it has become a mostly mental exercise for him.
Steel City has a bleaching effect on it's inhabitants; Metody has become a chemical albino. For social reasons, he wears makeup, tints his hair, and uses contacts to make himself look like a blonde. He is excruciatingly sensitive to sunlight, and will burn in just a few minutes of exposure. His eyesight is quite poor as well, though this is largely corrected by the contacts. His color sense is also dulled, which he compensates for by wearing the most god-awful garishly bright clothing he can get his hands on.
Beyond physical weaknesses, Metody has no defense against the magics of other worlds. Because of the strange makeup of his half-dead, monstrous mind, it is difficult for psychics to read his thoughts, but easy for them to bump into things they shouldn't, and knock him out.
CANON: OC
MEDIA: n/a
BIRTHDAY/AGE: May 1, 1982; he is 30 years old
CANON POINT: n/a
WHY THIS CHARACTER AND CANON POINT?: n/a as far as canon point goes. As for why this character: Metody is cheerful and a heck of a lot of fun to play. I think he adds a lot to the games he's in, as he is a useful blend of happy, sensible and compassionate. He's a good foil for both darker characters and lighter, more silly characters.
PROGRAMMED POSSESSION: His survival pack, which he is required by law to carry at all times while in Steel City. This contains environmental gear, including a respirator, supplemental oxygen, two liters of water, a water filter for when the contents of one bottle must be cleaned and poured into the other, rations, two days worth of medication and an emergency signal. Metody has supplemented it with hard candy and a hand held game console.
HISTORY: Once there was a god. The nature and the details of the god don't matter, because he – or possibly she, or it – was killed completely, and erased from the fabric of reality. But even a small god is a very large thing, and a few scraps were bound to be left over.
Metody is one of these scraps. Specifically, he is a splinter of bone that went tumbling through the world for long generations until it lodged inside someone who was at exactly the right point of almost dead. Metody does not have the power of a god, or even a very good priest. He can command bone and the associated tissues, and even that can be blocked by someone who is sufficiently knowledgeable or lucky. Additionally, he has absolutely no idea of what he is, and no way to find out.
Metody's world is like ours in only the loosest of details. It is heavily infested with spirits and gods, and so riddled with magic that entire continents vanish and reappear on a regular basis. Humanity has learned to survive through constant, intricate ritual and a tight-rope walk between using the magic around them, and frantically driving it back. One of the many creatures that plague them are witch-kin – things that start out as humans without souls, and slowly become magical, powerful and mad from the terrible knowledge of what they are. Metody believes himself to be a witch-kin in the first stages of development, and is terrified of what the future will hold.
Metody's sprawling family is one of the seven major adopting families in the United States, and he is used to having a relative wherever he goes. Like most adoptions in his world, his was carefully arranged to make it impossible for him to find his birth family, or vice versa; the sacrifice of love from the birth family, and the formation of a bloodless parental bond forms a powerful, life-long protection that is broken if knowing contact is made. Often, children with fatal conditions are given up in the hopes that this protection will save them. This is almost certainly what happened with Metody, who arrived in his new family with a serious heart defect.
Metody is the last of eight children, and has always been considered the baby of the family. He suffered a major car accident in his teens that destroyed his mind and broke his body. His physical recovery has been nothing short of miraculous – the adoption protection on him is very strong, and augmented by the subtle, instinctual application of his powers. He spent significant time in rehab for his mental disabilities, which is where he met John Smith, an artist who was recovering from the loss of his lower legs in the waning war with the Muisican Confederacy. Despite the vocal disapproval of both their families, the two quickly became a couple. They went on to college in Steel City, the cursed center of industry for the Eastern US, exchanging free educations for seven years of labor in the factories. The relationship was difficult from the beginning, but John's increasingly controlling ways and the demands of his growing powers made it hellish for Metody. A year and a half into their labor contracts, they broke up.
That was two years ago. The cursed city in which he lives has taken an expected toll on his health and mind. Metody's powers have flourished, and he has gone from regarding them with utter terror to a calm resignation. The easiest part of him to come to terms with has been his ever changing gender – that, at least, has precedence in his culture.
PSYCHOLOGY/PERSONALITY: For the most part, Metody is upbeat and cheerful. He places a high value on being both useful and pleasant to be around, and is highly eager to please. Sometimes this leads him into trouble; when in a group, he takes the jobs that no one else wants. If you need someone to wake up at 3 am to pick your mother up from the airport, Metody's your guy.
Person-hood is considered to be a process in Metody's world; anything with a soul is capable of being a person, but it requires good deeds and self-sacrifice to actually happen. Metody believes he does not have a soul, and so is incapable of becoming a person. Despite this, he desperately wants to be, and so he does what good he can in an effort to leave some kind of positive footprint on the world. This is not something he is willing to discuss.
Metody has a nasty sense of inferiority, and truly believes that others are more important than himself. He believes himself to be constantly scrambling behind his academic peers, despite tutoring some of them. Although he picks up extra money selling carvings and working on the intricate decorations that cover every inch of his world, he believes he is incapable of true artistry or creative endeavor. Despite this, he is happy about his talents; he might not ever be an artist, but he is grateful that he can combine old forms in new and pleasant ways.
Metody's gender is fluid. Metody is completely comfortable with this, but a bit shy about it as some people consider it freakish. Most of the time, he presents as a male who cross-dresses. To make conversation easier, he prefers that when people talk about him, they pick one pronoun and stick to it. He generally changes his gender to suit a social situation. Occasionally, this has led to awkwardness, such as when he's with a friend who considers him male, and they meet up with another who considers him female. In these situations, Metody copes by quietly ignoring any problems that crop up.
Metody has a highly liberal attitude towards sex and relationships. This is cultural; it is fairly normal (if low class) to have multiple partners in a somewhat stable framework, especially among young people. Metody's parents have recently celebrated their thirty-fifth anniversary with one of their girlfriends. Reliable birth control has been available to women since the thirties, and to both genders since the sixties.
POWERS/ABILITIES: Metody's powers center around bone – shaping, healing and manipulating them. This includes associated tissues, such as tendon, ligament and cartilage, as well as dead bone. He is able to divide his consciousness between multiple bodies, enabling him to animate his bone creatures. Unless his main mind is occupying one, these are roughly as intelligent as a dog. When his fleshy body is unoccupied, it is unconscious.
As he matures, he is becoming less and less human. His gender switching is one of the early aspects of this. While it is not completely unheard of for people in Metody's world to feel they are both male and female, Metody is unique in that this extends to a biological switching as well. He has always felt that his gender is fluid, but the physical aspect has only developed in the past two years. A good deal of his comfort with it is from no one else knowing.
If Metody's story hadn't been interrupted by Taxon, more changes would have taken place. In time, he would have encountered and merged with his siblings (respectively a drop of blood and a shred of flesh), and the new creature would have retreated to the wilderness to become a spirit of his world.
Obviously, Metody is unaware of all this. He believes his gender switching is another aspect of his monstrosity.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Metody is short, slender and exceedingly pale. His face is androgynous to feminine. It is no accident that he is so pretty; when his face was put back together, his plastic surgeon aimed for ideal proportions, and came very close to them. He chooses his clothing according to how colorful it is and how much of his skin it covers; he is prone to sunburn. He is covered in tattoos of green leaves, not that they show.
Metody's body is constantly leeching the poisons from Steel City. These give him an unpleasantly chemical smell, and force him to keep himself meticulously clean, so as to avoid massive skin problems. If he is unable to wash, his skin will quickly crack and seep. (His body fluids will make others ill if they consume them, but I really can't see that becoming a plot point, unless he's attacked by vampires with head colds. His sweat is mildly irritating, but no more so than, say, hand soap left to dry on the skin.) Another effect of this poisoning is that he requires quite a bit of sleep - nine hours a day at least, twelve hours ideally. Any less than this, and he quickly becomes sick.
Metody has nearly no sense of taste or smell. He is capable of enjoying different textures in foods, but for the most part, eating is a chore. Ironically, he's very fond of cooking, though it has become a mostly mental exercise for him.
Steel City has a bleaching effect on it's inhabitants; Metody has become a chemical albino. For social reasons, he wears makeup, tints his hair, and uses contacts to make himself look like a blonde. He is excruciatingly sensitive to sunlight, and will burn in just a few minutes of exposure. His eyesight is quite poor as well, though this is largely corrected by the contacts. His color sense is also dulled, which he compensates for by wearing the most god-awful garishly bright clothing he can get his hands on.
Beyond physical weaknesses, Metody has no defense against the magics of other worlds. Because of the strange makeup of his half-dead, monstrous mind, it is difficult for psychics to read his thoughts, but easy for them to bump into things they shouldn't, and knock him out.